HYDE PARK — Walking off home turf after the program’s lone regular season loss this season against Saugerties on May 7, Highland lacrosse found a reinvigorated drive to not let that pain happen again.
Matching up once again with the Sawyers with a title on the line, the Huskies completed that storybook comeback.
Avenging its lone regular season loss, Highland took home the Section 9 Class C championship on Saturday afternoon, May 30, after an incredibly physical 7-5 victory to secure back-to-back titles. The jubilation and determination led to the program creating a life-long memory.
“It’s very surreal… this is my core of guys. It was huge,” Thomas Schlappich, the head coach of Highland emotionally said after the win. “We’ve gradually grown and grown, it’s just a tremendous feeling right now.”
In that original loss back in early May, Highland allowed seven second-half goals to drop the battle with Saugerties. On Saturday, the defensive pressure and intensity was as high as possible which led to the ultimate prize.
“Words can’t describe it. Going into today, we were ready for that W. Everyone came out ferocious, came out guns blazing and I feel like that proved it out there.” senior defensive captain TJ Riley said.
Going into the fourth quarter knotted up at five apiece, the Huskies took a lead with just over eight minutes remaining in the contest. From there, that defensive unit and goaltender Justin Caballero locked in and refused to surrender another point the rest of the way before the final buzzer rang.
“They’ve been doing a fantastic job all season for us. They fly to the ball, they make us better because they’re constantly flying to the ball, getting to the hands and doing things like that,” Schlappich said, praising the whole defensive group. “Led by TJ Riley, Andrew Terranova and Quinn [Berean,] they just did a fantastic job.”
Offensively, the exceptionally talented and deep unit showed its’ prowess once again. Logan Davis, Luke Wiese and Trevor Coates each tallied two goals apiece to lead the group. Mark Cureton threw in the other goal.
“This was our program’s sixth section championship, second in a row for these guys and it’s just a fantastic feeling.” Schlappich said.
Caballero, a senior captain and multi-year varsity starter who moved positions to the back net years ago in order to help the team, was lifted up and carried on the shoulders of his team during the trophy ceremony because of his individual effort. It’s a moment that he’ll never forget.
“It means so much and it means a lot that I get to play one, maybe two more games,” an emotional Caballero said after the win. “It means a lot, they know that. It’s what they wanted and it’s what I wanted.”
Moving on to the regional stage, Highland still awaits to see who the team will match up against from Section 1. Either way though, completing the comeback run to avenge the only loss and continue playing as brothers is something the team will always cherish.
This article originally appeared on Poughkeepsie Journal: Highland avenges only regular season loss to secure Section 9 title
Reporting by Eric Decker, Poughkeepsie Journal / Poughkeepsie Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
